d the dizzying effect of foreign
faces, and I began to locate impressions. My first distinct
recollections are of the great numbers of high hats on the men, the
ill-hanging skirts and big feet of the women, the unsteadying effect
of all those thousands of cabs, carriages, and carts all going to the
left, which kept me constantly wishing to shriek out, "Go to the right
or we'll all be killed," the absolutely perfect manner in which
traffic was managed, and the majestic authority of the London police.

I have seen the Houses of Parliament and the Tower and Westminster
Abbey, and the World's Fair, but the most impressive sight I ever
beheld is the upraised hand of a London policeman. I never heard one
of them speak except when spoken to. But let one little blue-coated
man raise his forefinger and every vehicle on wheels stops, and stops
instantly; stops in obedience to law and order; stops without swearing
or gesticulating or abuse; stops with no underhanded trying to drive
out of line and get by on the other side; just stops, that is the end
of it. And why? Because the Queen of England is behind that raised
finger. A London policeman has more power than our President.

Even the Queen's coachmen obey that forefinger. Not long ago she
dismissed one who dared to drive even the royal carriage on in
defiance of it. Understanding how to obey, that is what makes liberty.

I am the most flamboyant of Americans, the most hopelessly addicted to
my own country, but I must admit that I had my first real taste of
liberty in England.

I will tell you why. In America nobody obeys anybody. We make our
laws, and then most industriously set about studying out a plan by
which we may evade them. America is suffering, as all republics must
of necessity suffer, from liberty in the hands of the multitude. The
multitude are ignorant, and liberty in the hands of the ignorant is
always license.

In America, the land of the free, whom do we fear? The President? No,
God bless him. There is not a true American in the world who would not
stand up as a man or a woman and go into his presence without fear.
Are we afraid of our Senators, our chief rulers? No. But we are afraid
of our servants, of our street-car conductors. We are afraid of
sleeping-car porters, and the drivers of huge trucks. We are afraid
they will drive over us in the streets, and if we dare to assert our
rights and hold them in check we are afraid of what they will say to
us, in